Is it just me, or does anyone else get a little whiplash from the whole auld lang syne thing these days?
The holidays alone, send me into a tailspin, because it’s October and people break out their trees. I mean, go for it with the therapeutic sparkle, but wasn’t it just JULY? I’m always resentful to see the summer go, clinging to the final days of lazy nights by the pool and fireflies, because it means it’s just another school year looming ahead.
Three. That’s the number of summers I have left with our oldest.
This is my photo from last year, and the sentiments are still the same.
But on to January, {thus the whiplash, I’m still on summer, probably somewhat processing 2020?} because while we’re recovering from the exhaustion the holidays bring when the cultural pressure of the whole ‘new year new me’ thing hits with more whiplash.
Lose ten pounds. Clean out the closet. Close your rings. Achieve. Repeat.
Until you die.
I don’t know about you, but I didn’t sign up for this.
I think that something happened to me in the last two years of this insanity we call our existence in the pandemic. It helped me realize I was focusing on all the wrong things.
I have goals and dreams and lists on the distant horizon I can only hope to experience in the future if I’m given the gift of time to do so. I can’t wait to organize my house {can I though?} and read up on how be a better mom and go learn a new dance or something else that sounds good here. I try to live a life of intentional improvement. But I’m afraid I’m to that age where the very idea of striving to do all the things just because the calendar changed… wears me out.
Wasn’t I just in college, making out with my boyfriend on the sofa?
When did I marry said boyfriend, incur a mortgage with a side of insomnia, and morph into a harried mother of three kiddos who will eventually make out with someone on a sofa? {Definitely not there yet… just a metaphor.}
The older I get, I realize this one thing.
I will always have the big moments in life that I’m excited about, or waiting for, or hoping to experience. That vacation I can’t wait to take. The goal I’m so close to achieving. I will probably always feel pressure to organize my closet and watch what I eat and try to make more happen… because we’ve been told these little things add up to the whole of a better person. A complete life.
Supposedly.
If those things happen, awesome. But maybe I don’t want to strive for it, if I’m always left feeling like it’s just out of reach. If I’m criticizing myself or if I feel like I’m not enough right where I am. If I’m biding my time for the next big thing. It all feels a bit like, well, drinking flat champagne on New Year’s Eve.
Because what I’m realizing, and what I’ve always known, is that it all comes down to the little moments.
Those tiny, insignificant, in-between moments. Those are the ones that matter.
It’s in those imperfect moments in being present, that we actually find the magic of a holistic life.
The photos that mean the most to me on my phone, are not the beautifully composed family photos. They’re not the epic locations or perfectly curated sunsets in amazingly coordinated outfits. I adore those too, because they’re rare. But they’re the snippets that means so much. The ones where if you blink, you could miss them. The ones where I can look back and have a simple memory of when we were really happy for absolutely no reason other than the fact that we were living life, and we were fully present.
They’re of freckled faces and snaggletooth smiles. Furry snuggles in grass stained jeans.
We had a water gun fight in bumper boats at the beach, that made me laugh so hard I nearly peed my pants a little. {No, those pelvic muscles aren’t what they used to be. And no, there was no ‘nearly’ about it.} But we took a selfie afterwards and it always makes me smile. The kids tried on silly hats in the middle of a store in Auburn, and it’s hilarious to me, every time I look at it because they were really working those poses. The youngest built a tent from blankets and pillows in the basement, and he stayed there reading, for days. Is there anything more precious than these authentic, imperfect, messy captures?
The moments that matter to me, are the one where Jamin and I lie in bed late at night and laugh so hard we can barely breathe. My youngest wakes up every morning, and the first thing he does is find us, to tell us he loves us. The one where my oldest and I have great conversations because he’s growing up and I’m giving him space to do so, whether I like it or not. My middle wants to tell me all about her day as soon as she’s home from school while the smell of her freshly baked cookies saturate the kitchen. {Even though there’s an ongoing competition between her and her dad, she really does make the best cookies.}
Life is imperfect. I will always be trying to improve. There will always be problems that need to be solved.
I don’t want to forget to appreciate what it is, in the meantime.
So while losing ten pounds, organizing my kitchen or achieving something new and noteworthy for my business seems great on that lofty list of to-dos… I find that all I’m really focusing on this new year, is the number three.
A subtle reminder of the number of summers I have left to soak it all up. Those genuine moments of joy. That’s what I’m focusing on this new year.
I just want to be present, and grateful. No matter what my stage or weight or drawer status in life. And that really is enough.
The rest, is just gravy.So raise your glasses high, no matter what they look like right now.
Cheers, to the little moments.
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